- Young women are resorting to selling their eggs for
thousands
of pounds a time to childless couples as a way of paying off their student
debts.
-
- The introduction of tuition fees and the cuts in grants
to pay living expenses mean that the average graduate begins the search
for a job with debts of more than £10,000.
-
- British infertility clinics are reluctant to discuss
the new trend. They say their role is to ensure that egg donors are not
acting under duress, not to police payment arrangements made by donor and
recipient.
-
- Although it is illegal in Britain to pay women any more
than unspecified "expenses" for egg donation, advertisements
appealing for donors are appearing increasingly in magazines with high
student readerships, such as The Big Issue.
-
- American clinics are allowed to reward donors handsomely
for the unpleasant and potentially risky procedure. Some of them, aware
of British students' financial problems, are now targeting women
here.
-
- Graduates and those with high IQs are in particular
demand.
Many commissioning couples, desperate to have children, are also prepared
to pay premium prices for specific physical attributes and good
looks.
-
- Clinics attract women by advertising payments of between
£6,000 and £10,000 for eggs from scarce Jewish donors or other
specified ethnic groups.
-
- Dorothy, a science graduate from Reading University,
is one such donor. She is preparing to fly to the Centre for Surrogate
Parenting and Egg Donation (CSPED) in Beverly Hills, California.
-
- She has already been a paid volunteer in a number of
trials of untested new drugs to try to pay off her student loan, and sees
egg donation as a much more lucrative option.
-
- "I saw an advert in a science magazine," she
said. "I replied to it. I wasn't really expecting to hear anything,
and about five days later a big application form arrived in the
post.
-
- "It took me quite a long time to do it, because
they wanted pictures of me and my family, and I had to get reprints
done.
-
- "They said my application is exceptional. I am on
a waiting list, appearing in a brochure of donors, until somebody decides
they like me. All the eggs I am producing are going to waste, and the money
would really help."
-
- Dorothy, 28, has been told her eggs will be worth
"as
much as £6,000".
-
- Her expenses in going to America and staying in a hotel
during the month-long egg collection process, will be covered by the
childless
couple who select her as their donor.
-
- Karen Synesiou, the director of CSPED, where Dorothy
is donating her eggs, said: "I am getting an increasing number of
inquiries from British women wanting to pay for their education.
-
- "Some couples may well want to bring donors across
from the UK, particularly if you have something unique about you, like
a PhD.
-
- "First-time donors normally get about $3,500
[£2,400],
and more if they are very well educated. A first-time Jewish donor will
automatically get $10,000 to $15,000 [£,6,800 to £10,300]
because they are harder to find. The same with Asians and east
Africans."
-
- Eggs are collected from women by administering drugs
to induce artificial menopause. The menstrual cycle is then restarted with
more drugs designed to cause multiple eggs to ripen, instead of the normal
one a month released naturally. A young, healthy donor can produce 15 or
20 eggs, sometimes many more, in a single cycle of treatment.
-
- Gedis Grudzinskas, the director of the Bridge Centre,
one of London's biggest private fertility clinics, said his clinic had
never knowingly taken eggs from a paid student donor.
-
- "If we got a really young donor alarm bells would
start ringing," he said. "We really see our role as ensuring
there is no coercion, but it is not up to us to check private arrangements
for payment.
-
- "We don't think egg donation is unsafe, but we don't
know what the long-term effects are, and nobody should do it
lightly."
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